I keep hearing different stories of the movie deeply villainized Joan Crawford but then I hear she was pretty abusive towards her two oldest kids. As someone who isn't familiar with the backstory, I don't really know the full accurate details other than the movie is based off a book I believe written by Joan's daughter Christina.
Comments
toomuchtostop t1_iu9t43y wrote
I’d recommend the Mommie Dearest episode from the You Must Remember This podcast.
Joan could be ruthless but it’s still debatable if she was abusive.
Ha1rBall t1_iub176n wrote
NO! WIRE! HANGERS!
Eternal-Testament t1_iub09m0 wrote
The daughter had motive to paint her as nasty as possible. I mean I would have.
How much of it was true? Well, I've never once heard anyone talk about Crawford being a nice person. Anything but in fact.
So I'm inclined to believe what the daughter wrote. Because I'll put it this way. I'm aware of how my grandmother treated her daughters, my mom and aunts. And they weren't adopted. A mother being that nasty and abusive. That horrific. For control and out of spite. Children are there to be seen only, to make me look good, to do exactly as I say even as adults, etc. I've seen that crap for real and it's lifelong after effects on people. So none of what's in that movie is a surprise. My mom and aunts use to call the old bag that in fact. Mommie Dearest. Because of the movie.
MovieMike007 t1_iu9fwuu wrote
As accurate as biased biography can be expected to be.
SupremeAntBee t1_iu9p3ag wrote
Of course I didn’t find the abuse scenes funny. Perhaps I should have clarified myself. I just found an awful lot of the film hilarious, and I was laughing out loud at the theatre, so I probably got strange looks as well.
HPmoni t1_iua8807 wrote
It was probably a hit piece, but it was also probably true. Apparently Christina was cut out of the will.
Hitting your kid with random shit used to be legal in America. As long as you didn't break bone or cause organ failure.
mickeyflinn t1_iuhd7hc wrote
It is unknown. Crawford has camps that defend her and say the story isn't true and others that say it is true.
SupremeAntBee t1_iu9mek2 wrote
I laughed through most of it. I hadn’t read the book beforehand, either. I just found it very funny.
beekee404 OP t1_iu9obl1 wrote
I feel like a lot of people do. For me personally, I never saw the concept of child abuse as funny no matter how it's displayed so I was just left horrified during those parts especially the haircut and wire hanger scene. Maybe the first part of the wire hanger scene was a little comical like how she's throwing a temper tantrum over one wire hanger but then she got violent so that became unsettling.
HorrorMovieFan45 t1_iuaerxz wrote
I never understood why people find it funny.
Like I get that it’s over-the-top. But why is over-the-top child abuse funny to anybody?
somebodymakeitend t1_iuahk90 wrote
Any amount of hitting your kid is abuse and that movie’s depiction was definitely upsetting af.
Anonymotron42 t1_iu9gdpf wrote
We’ll, it certainly depends. According to Christina the movie (and her autobiography) are 100% true. According to Joan Crawford’s estate, much of it is exaggerated, misremembered, or plain false. I personally think the truth is somewhere in the middle, as is often the case with “she said/she said” tell-all books and refutations, but I don’t think we’ll ever know the full truth.